Snake (video game)

Snake on a TRS-80
Snake on a PC with a Color Graphics Adapter
Snake[Telmac 1800], CHIP-8, published 1978 [1]

Snake is the common name for a videogame concept where the player maneuvers a line which grows in length, with the line itself being a primary obstacle. The concept originated in the 1976 arcade game Blockade, and the ease of implementing Snake has led to hundreds of versions (some of which have the word snake or worm in the title) for many platforms. There are over 300 for iOS alone.[2]

After a variant was preloaded on Nokia mobile phones in 1998, there was a resurgence of interest in the snake concept as it found a larger audience.

Gameplay

The player controls a dot, square, or object on a bordered plane. As it moves forward, it leaves a trail behind, resembling a moving snake. In some games, the end of the trail is in a fixed position, so the snake continually gets longer as it moves. In another common scheme, the snake has a specific length, so there is a moving tail a fixed number of units away from the head. The player loses when the snake runs into the screen border, a trail, or another obstacle.

The Snake concept comes in two major variants:

  1. In the first, which is most often a two-player game, there are multiple snakes on the playfield. Each player attempts to block the other so he or she runs into an existing trail and loses. Surround for the Atari 2600 is an example of this type. The Light Cycles segment of the Tron arcade game is a single-player version where the other "snakes" are AI controlled.
  2. In the second variant, a sole player attempts to eat items by running into them with the head of the snake. Each item eaten makes the snake longer, so controlling is progressively more difficult. Examples: Nibbler, Snake Byte.

History

The Snake design dates back to the arcade game Blockade,[3][4] developed and published by Gremlin in 1976.[5] It was cloned as Bigfoot Bonkers the same year. In 1977, Atari released two Blockade-inspired titles: the arcade game Dominos and Atari 2600 game Surround.[6] Surround was one of the nine Atari 2600 (VCS) launch titles in the United States and was also sold by Sears under the name Chase. That same year, a similar game was launched for the Bally Astrocade as Checkmate.[7]

The first known personal computer version, titled Worm, was programmed in 1978 by Peter Trefonas of the US on the TRS-80,[3] and published by CLOAD magazine in the same year. This was followed shortly afterwards with versions from the same author for the Commodore PET and Apple II. A microcomputer clone of the Hustle arcade game, itself a clone of Blockade, was written by Peter Trefonas in 1979 and published by CLOAD.[8] An authorized version of Hustle was published by Milton Bradley for the TI-99/4A in 1980.[9] In 1982's Snake for the BBC Micro, by Dave Bresnen, the snake is controlled using the left and right arrow keys relative to the direction it is heading in. The snake increases in speed as it gets longer, and there's only one life; one mistake means starting from the beginning.

Nibbler (1982) is a single-player arcade game where the snake fits tightly into a maze, and the gameplay is faster than most snake designs. Another single-player version is part of the 1982 Tron arcade game, themed with light cycles. It created new interest in the snake concept, and many subsequent games borrowed the light cycle theme.

Starting in 1991, Nibbles was included with MS-DOS for a period of time as a QBasic sample program. In 1992 Rattler Race was released as part of the second Microsoft Entertainment Pack. It adds enemy snakes to the familiar apple-eating gameplay.

Slither.io (2016) is a massively multiplayer version of Snake.

Nokia phones

Snake II screenshot from a Nokia 3310, showing level 4 and maze 2.
Snake III screenshot from a Nokia X2-00, showing classic mode.

Nokia is known for putting Snake on the majority of their phones. Versions include:

On November 29, 2012, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City announced that the Nokia port of Snake was one of 40 games that the curators wished to add to the museum's collection in the future.[14]

Snake is still included on some new low-end phones from Nokia, such as the Nokia 108 from 2013.

References

  1. ↑ Tieturi 2/1985 ISSN 0780-9778
  2. ↑ "Other Snake Games".
  3. 1 2 Gerard Goggin (2010), Global Mobile Media, Taylor & Francis, p. 101, ISBN 0-415-46917-1, retrieved 2011-04-07
  4. ↑ Rusel DeMaria & Johnny L. Wilson (2003). High score!: the illustrated history of electronic games (2 ed.). McGraw-Hill Professional. p. 24. ISBN 0-07-223172-6. Retrieved 2011-04-07.
  5. ↑ "Blockade video game, Gremlin Ind, inc. (1976)". Arcade-history.com. 2008-04-04. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
  6. ↑ Blockade at the Killer List of Videogames
  7. ↑ Rusel DeMaria & Johnny L. Wilson (2003). High score!: the illustrated history of electronic games (2 ed.). McGraw-Hill Professional. p. 48. ISBN 0-07-223172-6. Retrieved 2011-04-07.
  8. ↑ "You have 4537 of 4549 known Tandy Radio Shack TRS-80 - Model I games". Retrieved 2011-11-04.
  9. ↑ "Retrogaming Times Monthly 7". My.stratos.net. 2005-01-01. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
  10. ↑ More, James (2009-01-20). "History of Nokia part 2: Snake | Nokia Conversations - The official Nokia Blog". Conversations.nokia.com. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
  11. ↑ "Taneli Armanto: Snake Creator Receives Special Recognition". Dexigner. Retrieved 6 March 2013.
  12. ↑ neoncherry (2007-08-12). "The Unofficial Nokia Gaming Blog: Snakes for S60 Download". Web.archive.org. Archived from the original on November 1, 2007. Retrieved 2011-11-04.
  13. ↑ http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_2700_classic-2657.php
  14. ↑ http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/11/29/video-games-14-in-the-collection-for-starters/
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